SDG Reviews 'The Dark Knight Rises' (16621)

The Dark Knight Rises is very nearly the thunderous finale that Christopher Nolan’s unprecedented superhero trilogy needed after the pitch-black nihilism that Heath Ledger’s Joker brought to The Dark Knight. Bleak and apocalyptic, the third and final chapter is nevertheless more hopeful than the second, without the same sense of oppressive sadism. Better still, the film provides welcome moral clarity on the moral ambiguities of The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight Rises brings Batman’s personal story to a satisfying finale, albeit much telescoped by the trilogy format.

The completed trilogy is a work of towering ambition and immense achievement. The whole story arc is as much about the fate of Bruce Wayne’s soul as the fate of Gotham City — and both are very much in question. Nolan orchestrates his symphony of spectacle, action, doom, hope, destruction and resistance with verve and boldness, making for an overwhelming, enthralling climax.

Yet something crucial is missing — a major omission that lingers over the whole trilogy, a question raised ever more insistently in all three films, and at best left unanswered, if not answered negatively. That question is: Is Gotham City worth saving? Are its citizens fundamentally selfish and ruthless, or is there good in them? Offered a choice between darkness and light, which will they choose?

In Batman Begins, when Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Shadows judged that Gotham was irredeemably corrupt and could only be destroyed, Batman (Christian Bale) pressed for more time. In The Dark Knight, the Joker set out to prove that when the chips are down, ordinary people will eat each other — an experiment that ended on a merciful but inconclusive grace note.

Bane (Warrior’s Tom Hardy), a pumped-up juggernaut in a respirator face mask, recapitulates both Ra’s al Ghul and the Joker. Like Ra’s, he comes to destroy Gotham for its sins, and like the Joker he wants Batman to witness the people of Gotham destroying everything their hero fought to save.

In this battle, whether or not Gotham is ultimately destroyed or saved is not entirely the issue. The issue is who is right: Batman or Ra’s al Ghul, the Joker and Bane? Will the people of Gotham eat each other, or will they finally vindicate Batman’s hopes for them? To the extent that The Dark Knight Rises addresses this question, the answer isn’t encouraging.

When the movie opens, it seems Gotham has been saved — though Bruce Wayne is again “truly lost,” as he was at the start of Batman Begins. Eight years after the death of Harvey Dent and the disappearance of Batman, Bruce is a recluse in his rebuilt ancestral home, diminished emotionally and physically after hanging up the cape and cowl. Yet Gotham City is peaceful and prosperous. But has its peace been purchased through deception and injustice? Have the wealthy prospered at the expense of the poor and disadvantaged?

A slinky catburglar named Selina Kyle, never quite called Catwoman (Anne Hathaway, and yes, she pulls it off), rouses Bruce from his lethargy. “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne,” she warns him, a harbinger of Occupy Wall Street social unrest. “When it hits, you're all going to wonder how you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.” Bruce, of course, has been Gotham’s leading philanthropist, though it seems the Wayne Foundation’s charitable programs have languished lately.

Bane puts Gotham to its most extreme trial yet: a city-wide exercise in Lord of the Flies sociology, enforced by an army backed with powerful hardware. Bane presents himself as a sort of radical liberator and urges the citizens of Gotham to take back their city, or something, though he’s obviously a terrorist and openly threatens to destroy the city.

If there is good in Gotham, now’s the time for it. With the police sidelined, convicts running loose and Bane’s army making the rules, we expect chaos and lawlessness. Fine. But is that all there is? The title tells us that the Dark Knight rises, but what about his city? Can Gotham rise to the occasion, rise up against its oppressor? Are ordinary Gothamites capable of heroism? Or are uniformed heroes (bearing bat symbols or police shields) with weapons on their belts our only hope?

The shadow of 9/11 has always lain over this franchise. The finale needed a United 93 moment: civilians banding together to spit in the eye of terror and say, “Hell no. Not this time.” At least it needed to show ordinary Gothamites heroically rising to the occasion in other ways — caring for and protecting one another, sheltering strangers from the hordes; that sort of thing. (We do see a good priest in street clothes who runs a boys’ home and does his best to care for his charges. But this isn’t a Good Samaritan moment; he’s only living up to his existing responsibilities. Offscreen, some of the boys spread a message of warning to others — on the instructions of a cop.)

The film seems to hint at a possible counterrevolution as a likable everyman hero named John Blake (Inception’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt) furtively chalks bat symbols on street corners — possibly a sign of resistance and hope. (Batman never became the inspiring symbol he hoped to be, due to the strategic lie that Harvey Dent died a hero at Batman’s hands. Bane, though, sets the record straight. When your heroes lie to you, sometimes you need villains to tell you the truth.) Did I mention that Blake is a cop? A rookie, but still.

In the end, alas, the only active civilians (other than those in Batman’s own circle, such as Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox) are Bane’s hordes. To be fair, perhaps most or all of Bane’s hordes aren’t ordinary Gothamites. Perhaps they’re only the fanatical disciples he brought with him and the convicts liberated from prison (though even convicts were capable of heroism and faith in the last film, a theme not repeated here). Perhaps the ordinary citizens of Gotham simply keep their heads down and weather the storm. Nolan doesn’t show us even that. In the end, as my friend Jeff Overstreet put it, Nolan insists that “we have to hope for men with good hearts and big guns.” Not to mention good hearts and big wallets.

Ultimately, The Dark Knight Rises is a story of uniformed heroes, above all Batman and John Blake, the film’s best supporting character. On that level, it’s engrossing, bravura storytelling. No big-screen superhero more clearly has feet of clay than Bale’s Dark Knight. In all three movies, he miscalculates, at times makes things worse instead of better, and fails in the clinch. His butler Alfred (Michael Caine) has always worried over him, but as Bruce’s debilitating tendencies lurch from the paralyzing to the self-destructive, Alfred’s anxiety and grief become truly poignant.

Harvey Dent’s fatalistic line from The Dark Knight — “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” — hangs over this finale. Dent himself lived just a little too long and became a villain, though in the eyes of the public he died a hero. The Batman, too, went more than a few steps down the road of villainy, brutally beating criminals for information (and notably failing) and selling the people of Gotham a lie meant to bolster their spirits.

“Why do we fall, Bruce?” Thomas Wayne asked his son so long ago. In this film he falls again and again and again — though the title is The Dark Knight Rises for a reason.

Steven D. Greydanus is the Register’s film critic.

Content Advisory: Much intense action violence, including fatalities and crippling injuries; a non-marital bedroom scene (nothing explicit); some language. Might be too much for younger teens.

Comments

Batman doesn’t kill. He doesn’t believe that good ends justify evil means. Just as he doesn’t kill and won’t let his enemies be killed by others, he’s not going to let Gotham die. Because, in the end, there’s only one way a hero can win, and that is not to defeat his enemies, but to turn his enemies lives around; to turn criminals into saints, as it would be.

Posted by Jim on Thursday, Aug 2, 2012 7:02 PM (EDT):

The whole movie itself is whether there is hope of escape from the despair of this world. Bruce Wayne mastered his fear to intimidate the fears in others, and then fell back into isolation after the madness of Joker. Wayne was then broken and dumped by a more powerful adversary into an underworld of spiritual torment. Bane worsens the despair in fear by granting the optimistic opportunity to escape confinement by effort alone. Wayne has the bootstrap of a rope to make the leap. The Gotham underworld has the promise of social and economic justice to whip the wealthy and powerful. Law enforcement trapped beneath Gotham has the individual rookie cop. Gotham is apparently saved again by the masked individual, who has been the scapegoat and symbol of primal fear. The audience leaves Plato’s cave of shadows reinforced in American individualism and technology confronted by corrupt institutions.

Posted by JimPV on Tuesday, Jul 31, 2012 9:34 PM (EDT):

Believing Gotham was not worth saving would be giving in to despair, which is a sin.

Oh, and I want a batpod…!

Posted by Iohannes on Sunday, Jul 29, 2012 3:25 AM (EDT):

Hi SDG,
I got another chance to watch the movie again. I was completely wrong about whose decision it was to send the police into the tunnels. And the cops were dusty when they came out of the tunnels, but that was about it.
Keeping your question in mind, I was looking for signs of Gotham’s residents. There were some signs and hints of Gotham’s attitudes towards Bane.
1. Joining Bane and actively participating. There was one scene that obviously showed a citizen joining Bane. The Door Man with the green jacket is shown walking into the street as Bane’s Mob is walking towards him. In the next scene, he is shown dragging a woman whom is wearing a fur coat out of the building. He clearly joined Bane’s revolution.
2. Going along with Bane but sitting on the sidelines. The scene is ambiguous. She is not shown looting or attacking the bourgeois but Catwoman’s friend seemed to approve of the revolution.
3. Sitting on the sidelines. After the bomb went off, one of the couples that stumbled out of their homes hugged each other and seemed relieved that the whole ordeal was over. Due to Foley’s scene described later, I think that sitting on the sidelines is what most of the people resorted to.
4. Active resistance. When Bane freed the prisoners and is giving his speech while standing on top of the Tumbler, right at the moment he says that there will be blood, there is a scene of a building being looted and machine gun fire can clearly be heard. While this scene is ambiguous as well, it hints that there was resistance to Bane.

There were two other scenes that also provide more hints to the attitudes of the populace. The first one is at the river when Stryver was being exiled. Per IMDB, the character in question was an ex-prisoner that joined Bane so he would not be considered an ordinary citizen by the criteria that was set in the review. But he did give Stryver advice on how to cross the river and was visibly upset when Stryver sunk through the ice into the river. This scene was ambiguous as well. But unless he knew Stryver, this scene hints that people that joined Bane later disapproved of what was happening but went along with the revolution. This character was never seen again.

The second scene involved Foley. It looked like he “threw away” his badge and had quit being a cop. During his conversation with Gordon, Foley argues that there is no point in resisting Bane. That even the US Government was going to make a deal with Bane. If Bane was violently stamping out resistance, this would have deterred many from actively resisting. And if they believed that the government would negotiate with Bane, as Foley believed, then they must have had hope that they would eventually be freed. They must have figured that their best option was to wait it out.

Posted by RealityG on Saturday, Jul 28, 2012 10:57 PM (EDT):

So sad that people care about this darkness so much. Don’t you care that civilization is taking a giant step backward via the arts? If you only knew the true darkness that you expose yourself to. Evil is entering into your senses on your dime. Spend your time instead helping some Missionairies of Charity or read about the lives of the saints. “God sees me, eternity is near.” Bl. Louis Martin, father of St. Therese of Liseaux

Posted by Thibaud on Saturday, Jul 28, 2012 11:36 AM (EDT):

Thank you for this insightful review. Given the overall positive tone of your review, I think you could have marked this movie A- instead of B+, though.

I understand that you consider that, in the end, the trilogy doesn’t really give an answer to the question : is Gotham a city of “decent” people (that is to say “sinners in desperate need of redemption but generally no more horrible that the average children of Adam”) who are the victims of a truly evil minority OR a city of horrible people ? I’d say that it does give some hints towards a hopeful, optimistic answer (I completely agree with Leo’s post right above mine, for instance). I think you will agree that, at the very least, it does not give a clear nihilistic, atheistic, pessimistic answer like the Watchmen movie did for example, that’s something to be thankful for.

But what I personally am most thankful for is that this trilogy, though it may not have given a satisfying conclusion to the “Gotham arc” did give a very satisfying conclusion to the “Bruce Wayne arc”, giving him a well-deserved happy ending of marital bliss with a reedeemed Selina Kyle. A Bruce Wayne who has finally moved past the pain of his parent’s murder is something that we will obviously never see in the comics. That makes this trilogy maybe a bit lacking on a intellectual level, but extremely satisfying on an emotional one.

(And OK, you could argue that that shot was simply Alfred’s wish-fulfilment, but all the other last shots of the movie (Fox learning that the Bat did have an autopilot, Gordon seeing that the Bat-signal has been repaired, Blake getting indications to the Batcave) point towards the fact that Batman faked his death and Alfred is, therefore, not hallucinating).

Posted by Leo Kanzelberger on Friday, Jul 27, 2012 9:19 PM (EDT):

Hey SDG,
I really like your assessment of Bruce Wayne’s journey throughout the movie, but the whole Gotham rising issue? I’m not sure that I see an issue here. Since when are policeman not regular people? Soldiers aren’t regular perhaps, but the police? The police are REGULAR people who have decide to serve as law enforcers in THEIR community. They’re not superheros. And they can walk out whenever they want. It’s not like the military where you have a tour of duty that you have to serve. A soldier can’t walk out, but a cop can. It’s a regular job, like a fireman, or a mailman. In TDK trilogy, the police start out as all but bad guys. In Batman Begins, there’s Gordon, and then the corrupt cops. In the Dark Knight, there’s a mix of good cops and and bad cops. Then in the Dark Knight Rises, the ENTIRE police force combats Bane. The Gothamites do rise with Batman, represented by the the police. The city was corrupt when the police were corrupt. When they rise, they free the city. Remember, in a brief shot you see that the policeman won against Bane’s mercenaries. I also believe that at least part of Christopher Nolan’s decision to use the police instead of the rest of Gothams citizens is that the police were the part of the city that was corrupt. Crime ran wild because the police didn’t do a thing about it. The police had a lot more to rise from than random citizens. And rise they did. It also would have been hard from a film-making point of view to have a significant amount of previously undefined characters playing any major roles. Please boost TDKR into the A’s. Thanks.

Posted by Mary on Friday, Jul 27, 2012 2:23 PM (EDT):

I agree with JP. The question of the worth of Gotham’s citizens is a good and often used excuse for the villains of these Batman movies to go on killing sprees, but it never meant much to Bruce/Batman. Bruce’s plea for “more time” in Batman Begins seemed more of a plea to wait for HIM to save Gotham and not really a plea to wait for Gotham’s ultimate choice between good and evil. Batman does not trust Gotham’s citizens, and we are left to approve or disapprove of that as we wish, but he very clearly believes in the innate value of human life. Isn’t that enough? If a hero only saves the people worth saving, is he really a “hero”?

Don’t you think it’s a bit unfair to expect a superhero movie to have some message about the civilians? The Dark Knight in the ferry scene was an exception to the rule, not some standard for superhero movies. The Avengers movie never bothered with civilians.

I am aware that this film has some faults (plotholes!), but this question did not bother me that much.

Posted by Stuart Miller on Thursday, Jul 26, 2012 11:52 PM (EDT):

I think how the community banded together in the wake of the Aurora tragedy is God’s answer to the Batman trilogy’s question “Is Gotham worth saving?”

It wasn’t just the Aurora community, or even Denver; it is the whole nation—have you seen the Anderson Family Relief Fund, COVA, and the Hope Rises Relief Fund? In fact, Petra Anderson’s miracle story, as widely circulated as it has been, may have brought enough of God’s message (that He still works miracles) to prove the point.

Posted by Brian on Thursday, Jul 26, 2012 2:02 PM (EDT):

There is an article posted today by Mark Hughes @ Forbes, that gives a good summation of what the end of the film means. Definite ***SPOILER ALERT*** though!

Posted by JP on Wednesday, Jul 25, 2012 6:36 PM (EDT):

Who bloody cares if Gotham is worth saving? That’s not the point. Batman fights on its behalf because he knows it’s the right thing to do.

The question doesn’t need asking, because these it’s not about what Gotham deserves. The question is what it needs.

Just a note about that Slashfilm article (which is good): it disproves the contention that there is no sign of religion in Gotham. On page three of the article, there’s a picture of a shot I noticed during the film as well, when a church is clearly visible down the street behind the mob.

Posted by Iohannes on Wednesday, Jul 25, 2012 3:50 AM (EDT):

Hi SDG,

I appreciate your insightful reviews and especially like that you have discussions with us on this forum.

Speaking of gripes and plot holes, like the shark in Jaws, Batman himself is the biggest plot hole of the entire series. Or should this fact simply go unsaid?

Thinking about the police force that the city of Chicago amassed for the NATO Summit this summer, it would not be a far stretch of the imagination to assume that Gotham sent 2/3 of its police force into the tunnels. Especially if you take into consideration that they were going after a small army with military hardware that was being amassed in those tunnels, then the high number of police officers seems more plausible. The National Guard would have been better suited in tackling Bane’s forces. I didn’t quite catch whose idea it was to send the police after Bane nor do I have any inkling of the political ramifications of bringing in the National Guard. However, I walked away thinking it was the Mayors idea. But Foley could have influenced that decision. They each had their own motivation in having the threat resolved by the Gotham PD. I think that Gotham’s Mayor saw this as a perfect opportunity to lift up Foley. Replacing Gordon, the war hero, would be a very unpopular move. But if Foley could stop the terrorist threat, he would become the city’s new champion. The public would accept him as the new Commissioner without second thought. Foley, of course, wanted the glory for his own advancement. The Mayor and Foley incorrectly calculated that the large police force was sufficient to stop Bane.

Let’s assume that at least 1/3 of Gotham’s police force remained guarding the precincts. Blake was warned that Bane was killing any police officer that he encountered on the streets. How many of those police officers in the precincts were killed by Bane? How many threw away their badges to preserve themselves? Maybe after all of this, only a handful remained. My major gripe with the police force scenario was that if Bane was killing the police in the streets, why did he keep the buried officers alive? He was giving them food and water. What really killed me was that I expected the police to emerge from the tunnels as bearded, shaggy, dirty, tattered, and rancid ghouls. They were living in their uniforms for about five months. Yet, when they emerged, they were all clean, clean cut, shaven, and their uniforms were pressed, ironed, and crisp as the first day that they were buried in the tunnels. None of them had a speck of dust on them.

Regarding Miranda, it appeared that Alfred frequently suggested her to Bruce as someone he could date and possibly establish a relationship. Maybe Bruce was influenced by Alfred’s prompting and positive review of Miranda to some degree. But most likely pretty faces are Batman’s mortal weakness and that is why he rushed it. Who can blame him?

In a sense, Bruce was not sidelined for most of the movie. There were two other un-credited villains in the film that he had to confront and defeat - his own fears and pain. Seeing how these two influenced his life, I think that that battle required much more of Bruce than his fight with Bane. But this battle was not shown in a satisfactory way and his mastery of them was not really made evident until the final scene of the movie (which by the way, was a very nice touch). As someone who has had to confront his own fears and pain, I can honestly tell you that in comparison, being punched in the face by some brute like Bane would have been preferable.

Posted by A Feminine Woman on Tuesday, Jul 24, 2012 11:25 PM (EDT):

Has anyone else seen Holy Musical B@man on youtube? It isn’t meant to be taken seriously, just a fan-made parody musical for laughs.

Posted by Matt on Tuesday, Jul 24, 2012 3:20 PM (EDT):

For the sake of trying to prove my point, I must give away details of “The Dark Knight Rises.” **SPOILER ALERT** In TDK, Batman’s test (the theme) was about sticking to his “code” despite Joker’s attempts to corrupt. Batman’s decision was ironic since he ultimately chose to do the right thing by doing the wrong thing (he lied about Dent for the greater good). The other characters reflected Batman’s arc: Gordon and Alfred made the same choice as Batman (bad/lies for the sake of good; Alfred when he burned the letter) but Harvey Dent was completely corrupted. Only the people of Gotham (as a whole) remained incorruptible as they didn’t blow each other up in the harbor. Batman never lost faith in the people, but in himself. In fact, the people inspired Batman by proving that the Joker was wrong about them (Batman returned the favor in TDKR when he burned his symbol on the bridge and beginning a revolt). Batman set out to inspire and cultivate goodness, so his spirit was broken when he saw that he inspired the evil of Joker, yet it was renewed when he saw how it also inspired the goodness of Blake (just as Gordon’s act of kindness gave Batman hope as a child). TDKR explored a new theme in dealing with the consequences of Batman’s choice to lie at the end of TDK. TDKR showed how the truth always comes out and suppressing it ultimately does more harm than good. This is why Batman, Gordon and Alfred needed redemption but the people as a whole did not; they had already passed the test. The people were not in danger of losing their souls this time, but in losing their lives from an outside threat. This is an important distinction. In TDKR Batman’s test had to do with accepting his past in order to move forward (Batman’s deepest need from the beginning of the series). Just as he had to embrace his fears in order to escape the prison, Batman had to be purged of his lies in order to be a hero again and save Gotham. Gordon, Alfred (by revealing Rachel’s letter) and even Catwoman all made the same choice as Batman agin and thus were redeemed and able to move forward with a clean slate, while the two villains remained consumed and crippled by their past (their revenge plot) and paid the ultimate price. However, an interesting irony still lingers, because Batman did fake his own death. Is this just another lie, or a symbolic truth? I think Batman needed to “die” in order for Wayne to finally live free, something that was only possible because of Blake (representing Batman’s legacy of good). Just when Wayne and Batman seemed to be forever intertwined (when his secret identity was exposed), Batman found a way to break free: by passing the torch. Wayne may no longer need Batman, but Gotham will always need a hero. See, Blake is the key to understanding Batman’s ultimate victory for Gotham’s soul and proof that Gotham is both worth saving and can be saved. Batman will permanently remain a symbol of hope in Gotham (remember the statue). Men may be corruptible, but a symbol can be pure, something to strive for, generation after generation.

FWIW, SlashFilm has a pretty good list of 15 Things That Bothered Us About ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (spoiler warning). I don’t agree with every gripe, and I’m willing to overlook some of the plot holes, but there are some real issues here. Having Batman recuperating twice from a state of physical impairment is an odd narrative strategy that keeps the titular hero on the sidelines for most of the film. Bruce’s relationship with Marion Cotillard’s character and his trust in her isn’t effectively set up. The critique of Bane’s revolutionary Gotham is on the right track, though it needs to go further. And yes, the idea that every cop in Gotham (with, like, three exceptions?) would be down in the storm drains at the same time is ridiculous. (Nobody was running police stations, directing traffic, on meter maid duty, etc.? Not to mention, surely at any given time over half the police force is off duty? Even if they pulled in a lot of off-duty cops for a special operation, it wouldn’t be close to two-thirds of the total force.)

Iohannes: I appreciate your thoughtful reflections on the film. I think you are correct to say that Batman had no comprehensive strategy, in part because he had no clearly defined objective and therefore no exit plan (which leaves obvious unexplained questions around a certain encounter in the denouement). All of this (except for the exit plan) is so not Batman. Batman is supposed to be a strategic genius. As with Spider-Man’s science smarts, the films have not effectively dramatized this.

My one real dissent from your reflections is when you suggest that these flaws in Batman’s plan and the failure to redeem Gotham was done deliberately, to prompt discussions like these and reflect on our hearts. That’s a nice idea, but I see no particular basis for it in the films. From a critical perspective, a reading of a film must be grounded in the structure and content of the film itself. My whole problem with the failure to redeem Gotham is that the film doesn’t clearly show ordinary Gothamites going along with Bane, nor resisting him, nor passively sitting on the sidelines. In the end, when we see some civilians stumbling out of their houses, it’s like the movie has forgotten about them until then. If Nolan had meant us to reflect on the failure of Batman to inspire the populace, he should have showed that failure in Gotham’s hour of crisis, instead of simply not showing the inspiration, which is not the same thing. An argument from silence is a weak argument.

Posted by Iohannes on Tuesday, Jul 24, 2012 2:36 AM (EDT):

Maybe the question as to whether Gotham should be saved was left open so that we can have this exact discussion and reflect within ourselves and see where our heart is. Do we allow the nastiness of the people or their god given value and dignity influence our decision? Maybe by answering that question within ourselves, the movie is allowing us to see how corruptible or virtuous we can be. The people in the ferry that voted to denote the other boat were operating out of fear. Their vote does not necessarily make them bad people or not worth saving.

I have some thoughts as to why Batman failed to bring about a meaningful “salvation.” Basically, Batman had no clue how to win the hearts and souls of the people of Gotham and he did not have a comprehensive plan to eliminate corruption.

Gotham was plagued with systematic corruption that was completely integrated into its economic, social, and political structure. I recall Bane saying that Gotham was beyond saving and that it should be left to die. The start of the movie shows that while Gotham believed it was “saved” because organized crime was virtually eliminated, the society was still rotten. Batman focused his actions on a specific subset of the crime, organized and street crime. It does not appear that he combated other areas of corruption or types of crime (such as white-collar crimes). He did not combat the social causes of crime such as poverty, broken homes, etc. either. The movie gives the sense that these social conditions, along with other forms of crimes and corruption (i.e. economic/business, etc.) have actually become worse during the last eight years.

As Bruce Wayne, Batman can help fight the social causes of crime and corruption through his charitable works. This action may inspire others to pick-up the baton. But it is obvious that he has dropped the ball on this. His company is no longer profitable and his donations have stopped. In his dejection, he was completely unaware of both. There is very little that he can do as Batman to combat these conditions. The best he can do is punch and lock-up the people negatively affected by these social conditions that resort to crime. Catwoman justifies her actions to Robin by saying that she has to eat. But what of spiritual decay resulting from greed, lust, desire for revenge, and sin that leads to crime and corruption? Can Batman actually combat these? He cannot.

Bruce set-out in Batman Begins to inspire people to work for good. But his approach was destined to fail from the beginning. He resorted to violence, intimidation, and fear to combat corruption (the very same tactics used by the corrupt). Batman did nothing to win the hearts of the citizens of Gotham to desire good. He did inspire people to take action, but it was not the desired action. In the Dark Knight, citizens put on masks and used guns to exact their own vigilante justice. Batman was actually inspiring chaos. Harvey Dent was the prime example of Batman being unable to combat the spiritual decay that leads to corruption and crime. Dent was very vain. This with his other faults made it easy for him to become corrupted. Even before he became Two-Face, Dent was already down the road to corruption. As the DA, he was willing to use corrupt/unethical tactics (employing a vigilante, psychological torture of the Arkham inmate). And after his confrontation with Maroni in which Batman realized that he could no longer intimate criminals, he sabotaged his chances of ever being the inspirational symbol that he wanted to become.

Maroni told Batman that all the criminals knew his game, that Batman would never kill anyone. Batman realized that being a hero, he would be held to a higher standard by the public, he would be someone that people looked up to. He had to walk the straight line forever otherwise he would lose his status. The criminals saw this too and as a result saw him as just another cop. Why would they fear another cop? But as a vigilante, he wouldn’t be held to a higher standard. He could do bad things. He could burn down the jungle like Alfred did. That is why he took the blame for killing Dent and the other four people. Rachel being dead, his only hope for a normal life, Bruce was throwing himself completely into the Batman persona (which he wanted to drop during the whole film). By taking blame for the murders, he sent out the message that he was willing to do whatever it took to get what he wanted. Batman would even kill a cop if he had too. This would cause all criminals to always fear him because Batman was ruthless. He may have their number. But as a vigilante and wanted criminal, the public would not look to him as inspiration for good. In Dark Knight Rises, only the children naïve to the world looked up to him as inspiration for good. But eventually, I think, their life experiences in Gotham would diminish their view of Batman.

Posted by StandUSA on Monday, Jul 23, 2012 1:24 PM (EDT):

The film Last Ounce of Courage is the story of a grieving father inspired by his grandson to take a stand for faith and freedom against a tide of apathy and vanishing liberty. A tale of family bonds and free expression, the film seeks to encourage all Americans to take a stand and raise their voices in support of their beliefs. In theaters Sept. 14. To learn more about it or StandUSA, please visit http://www.standusa.com/last-ounce-of-courage/

Joe: Thanks for your comments. I’m sympathetic to your argument that “ongoing output of amplified violence and bleakness” tends to “kill the soul,” and that too much Christian appropriation of such fare is shallow and insufficiently critical. Nor do I disagree with Postman’s diagnosis of “amusing ourselves to death.” We are suffering from a glut of dark, bleak, violent movies. I don’t think that darkness, bleakness or violence are automatically unhealthy in themselves, but I do think that a steady diet of them tends to coarsen and harden the soul.

I think there’s a reason, and not a bad or unhealthy one, that rentals for a movie like Die Hard skyrocketed in the months after 9/11. Dark, violent themes have an appropriate place in human imagination—a limited place, subject to restraint in any presentation (I have nothing good to say about a movie like Savages or The Expendables), and best kept to a minimum of our selection of material, and balanced by positive depictions of wholesome themes. I have no quarrel with anyone who decides that anything from Saving Private Ryan to The Passion of the Christ to District 9 to True Grit isn’t for them. But I think films like these potentially have a lot to offer critical, discerning viewers.

Iohannes: The thesis that Gotham didn’t deserve saving but Batman was saving it anyway would be one reasonable resolution to the problem. My sticking points are a) the movie doesn’t propose that solution and b) I’m not sure how meaningful a “salvation” Batman managed to secure in any case.

Posted by Joe on Monday, Jul 23, 2012 11:35 AM (EDT):

I second Suzy. This is macabre, ponderously dark stuff. How depressing that the major, hugely expensive creative film stories being cranked out now are super-dark, long, and overblown retellings of cheesy comic book characters. And yet Christians can go on and on about the redemptive merits of the story. Sure, they are there, but so entwined with the more prurient elements of the medium as to be neutered. Lots of MTV material has wit, beauty, and a lesson, and yet watching it tends to kill the soul. Watching the ongoing output of amplified violence and bleakness has the same effect. It is unwise, no matter how many books on “The Gospel According to Batman” are rolled out. Postman nailed it: we are amusing ourselves to death. But gotta go now and watch “Entertainment Watch”: a retooling of Green Arrow is in the works, only this time—surprise—a little darker! Sheesh. Besides, the real poison is preferable to arguing about theological parallels from “The Avengers.”

Posted by Lea S. on Monday, Jul 23, 2012 11:20 AM (EDT):

I was another viewer who was disappointed that there wasn’t any mention at all of the Joker. After figuring so prominently in TDK, the least they could have done was to refer to him being in jail or death row or executed or something like that—even if you figure in the fact that several years have gone by between TDK and Rises. From what I’ve heard, it was decided that mentioning the Joker would’ve been disrespectful to Heath Ledger’s memory. Not sure I buy why this would be disrespectful, to be honest.

Posted by Iohannes on Monday, Jul 23, 2012 11:00 AM (EDT):

Hi SDG,

I thought I saw more Catholic images in the home of Daggett. But what you explain about Bruce makes sense and I agree with you. Regarding whether or not Gotham deserved to be saved? Did we deserve to be saved? Afterall, we nailed our savior to a tree.

Posted by Claire on Monday, Jul 23, 2012 2:21 AM (EDT):

One reason that perhaps could explain why the ordinary citizens are not given their moment of redemption is that it seemed that Bane’s revolution was in many ways analogous to the Occupy crowd - the film even went so far as to have a scene in which they are literally occupying the Gotham version of Wall Street. (There was even a capitalist point made that even people who didn’t invest would be affected by a stock market crash, as the value of their money would fail as well.) Combined with the French Revolution overtones, it seemed like a thought experiment of how the general population would react to an overthrow of the upper class ala OWS (and other anarchist groups in vogue at the moment) - and mostly, the reaction is that the rich have “gotten what they deserve”. If this was a point that Nolan specifically wanted to make, it was necessary to show the wrongful celebration of that kind of citizen, leaving less room for their redemption. (Although Selina Kyle, previously amoral, is redeemed by the realization that there is a cost to anarchy and self service.) I also agree that the police force, previously emphasized as being corrupt, stood in for the citizens who achieved redemption, that by the end of the film, even the apathetic Foley is prepared to give his life for Gotham.

QMS: I wouldn’t say the trilogy “failed.” As regards Batman’s character arc, I think it’s pretty successful. The trilogy succeeds in many respects. What it doesn’t do is vindicate Batman’s long-term crusade to inspire, elicit or otherwise aid the redemption of Gotham. That’s a major failing, but not a complete failure, per se. Batman is still, in many ways, a credible hero.

As for going back to the drawing board to define a hero…um, not for me, thanks, unless we start thinking beyond comic books as source material and begin thinking about real-world heroes. I love comic books, but enough is enough. Nolan’s trilogy is in many respects the best the form has produced so far. I don’t want to sit through waves of Green Laterns and Thors waiting for some ambitious filmmaker to outdo Nolan. Let’s move on. (He said quixotically, knowing that superhero blockbusters wouldn’t be going anywhere for a decade or more.)

Pachyderminator: Good points about Lucius Fox and the Joker: opposite problems, in that one seemed to have reached a climactic turning point that seems to have evaporated now, and the other promising future encounters (“I think you and I are destined to do this for a long time”) that now never materialize. Because of how Nolan structured the trilogy, with little if any room for major adventures between films, Batman’s entire career seems to span little more than a few months of active crimefighting, with one major episode apiece involving Ra’s al Ghul, the Joker and Bane. A little minimalistic.

Elizabeth S: A friend of mine has raised an angle that converges with my own thought, but which I didn’t raise in my review because I didn’t see a spoiler-free way of doing it (spoiler alert!). What was Batman’s long-term strategy, and what allows him, in the end, to walk away (if we take the post-climactic encounter with Alfred at face value)? Batman started out hoping to inspire the people of Gotham. Later, though, it seems what he mostly inspired was vigilante imitators, so he turned to Harvey Dent as a more workable inspiration. But the Joker ruined Dent, so Batman preserved the illusion of the inspiring Dent through a lie. But that lie led to apparently unjust laws, and the lie came unraveled in the end, and Batman had to come back. What happens after that that lets him walk away? How exactly has Batman finally made a difference?

Oy:Jeffrey Overstreet’s review is excellent and insightful. He and I agree on more than we disagree, though my spin is more positive and his is more negative.

Iohannes: Regarding anti-Catholic sentiments: I’m not seeing it. Bruce Wayne had a Marian statue in his house, apparently something that meant something to his parents, though not necessarily to him. Bruce’s parents were portrayed from the start as socially responsible benefactors to the city. And don’t forget the priest at the boys’ home: just about the only remotely positive civilian not in Bruce Wayne’s personal circle.

Donald Neal: 1) Regarding the christological resonances you highlight: See Jeff’s review (linked above) for a discussion of Batman as a “secular messiah” (in a rather negative sense).

3) How, exactly, did the police force get so un-corrupt? Batman had nothing to do with that, unless the discredited “Harvey Dent Law” played a role after all. If anyone accomplished that, it was Commissioner Gordon (who was promoted to commissioner because the Joker killed his predecessor). So again I’m not seeing what Batman has accomplished. Unless Batman was right to tell the Joker “This city is full of people (not cops or potential cops, but civilians) who are ready to believe in good,” then I think there’s a moral failure near the heart of the series. And I don’t see (for reasons that should be very clear by now) that the trilogy has vindicated this contention.

From which, combined with the foregoing, my response to Hibernicus should be clear.

Johnson: You say “He made the answer to that clear…” No, that doesn’t make it clear at all, for the reasons noted above in my exchanges with Rachel K. Regarding realism: Are you saying no ordinary citizens behaved heroically during the French Revolution? On other points, see my previous comments.

Posted by johnson on Sunday, Jul 22, 2012 9:58 PM (EDT):

I think the main point ignored here is the realism. Gotham and its plight is very similar to that of the French Revolution. I think this time around, Nolan is asking a different question. It is not whether “there is good in human beings”. He made the answer to that clear when he showed that even the most terrible person (big convict on the boat) has good in him.

So the question this time around is that of moral legitimacy of violent Revolutions and the need for honest authorities. The revolutions were answered as a negative. As for the honest authorities, in BB and DK, Batman and Gordon were the only (shown) good law enforcers. The rest were merely going with the tide. This is why Gotham needed Batman even though they had “peace”. Also worth mentioning that the peace was build on a lie. But in the end of DKR, you see the authorities actually standing up against Bane and his minions. They take up the role of enforcing the law. So Batman is no longer needed.

You could say that the movie opposes revolutions and shows the importance of honest authorities. This also goes back to asking, what was the league of shadows trying to fight against in BB (or DKR). The answer is that they were fighting corrupt men. Batman trilogy shows that corrupt men must be fought using proper means. BUT, these corrupt men can shed their evil ways (Catwoman, Gotham PD)and do good.

Having seen the film, I think SDG is a little hard on it:
(1) The Gotham police in the film could legitimately be seen as a surrogate for the whole city. In the first film, they were so riddled with corruption that even the honest cops had to turn a blind eye; in the second they had improved, but they were still bad apples; in this one, even the weaker members were ultimately prepared to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
(2) The film had a recurring theme of childhood betrayed, the moral responsibility of those who do the betraying, and the moral responsibility of those children for how they respond to the betrayal. (For example, character X’s redemption begins when they see a smashed picture of a family with whom they would normally not identify and now do empathise with them - the implication being either that X once had a family and lost them as a child, or never had one, wishes they had, and now realises others are suffering the same fate and X cannot shirk responsibility for what happened to them; Bane’s army is described as partly recruited from orphans who had to leave the orphanage early because funding ran out.)
(3) The film’s central theme was IMHO the danger of mistaking despair for strength, both on the personal level (Bruce Wayne and Gordon have ended up in despair because of their collusion in what they thought was a noble lie) and on the social level, which I think is the answer to the question of whether the film definitely refutes Ras al-Ghul’s claim that Gotham can’t be saved. That’s an expression of despair, and the central point about the villains in this film is that they see themselves as self-sacrificing heroes when they are really destroying themselves and everyone else in despair.

Posted by kevin on Sunday, Jul 22, 2012 12:42 PM (EDT):

Now that I’ve seen the movie twice, I’d love to jump back into the conversation that’s been going on here, including some of the stuff Steve and others have been discussing:

Ultimately, this movie was somewhat disappointing as a cap to the Batman trilogy, and I expected a little more from Christopher Nolan in certain regards.

1) While the hand to hand combat scenes were absolutely phenomenal, the vehicle chases—particularly the last scenes with the bat, tumblers, and batpod—did not offer the excitement I was expecting. When I saw the batmobile chase in BB, I was awestruck—there is an enormous amount of intensity, diversity, creativity, and destruction in that chase, all to the tune of a booming score in the background. TDK also had a very creative chase scene in the middle, and when the batpod emerged from the flaming wreckage of the batmobile, the action (and musical score) started getting taken to another level. I got no such adrenaline rush in watching the chase scenes with the bat, etc. in the final scenes…all that the action consisted of was the bat evading a few missiles, and either the bat or the batpod swooping in right behind one of the tumblers, firing a few shots, and the tumbler exploding or flying off to the side. I wanted a much more chaotic, twisting, and turning vehicle chase for the big finale, and in my eyes, the film did not quite deliver.

2) The presentation of Bruce Wayne’s recovery from his injuries was very disappointing to me. Basically, some guy smacks his back and miraculously heals the broken vertebrae, and then we get to see bruce do about 3 pushups, 3 situps, and 3 pullups. Part of the problem is that even after Wayne gets put in the prison, he very quickly wants to get out and back in the fight—I was expecting him to go into a much more dark and desperate mental place first for awhile, in which he questions whether he has the desire or the hope to want to fight anymore—and then, of course, once he has some kind of self-realization or experience to rebuild his confidence, etc. THEN he begins a long, brooding, intense physical regiment to start getting in shape again. Sure, his attempts to climb out of the hole and eventual success in escaping were well done, but something major was missing in the prison scenes beforehand that I thought was supposed to play a key role in Bruce’s character development in this movie.

3) Finally, there is the issue of the citizens of Gotham which some of you have been talking about on here. First, I want to highlight some positive developments that we did get from Nolan—if we go back to BB, we discover that it’s not simply the ordinary citizens of Gotham who need moral help, but the police especially. As Gordon said, “In a town this bent, who’s there to rat to anyway?” And of course in TDK, it’s again emphasized how corrupt the cops are (a huge concern of Harvey Dent’s), as so many of them are working for Maroni. Well, in this movie, we definitely did get a redemption of the Gotham police force, and maybe that’s where the larger, long-term redemption of Gotham’s populace has to start, since these are the guys whose job it is to protect them, and not the Batman’s. Obviously John Blake is Nolan’s model for the ideal Gotham police officer, but I think the best presentation we get of this theme is when Gordon goes to Deputy Commissioner Peter Foley’s house during the occupation. Foley is clearly scared of the entire situation, and just wants to hunker down with his family, despite Gordon’s protestations that they need to act, and that the crisis will only get fixed from inside the city (symbolically, from within the hearts of Gotham’s populace itself). What’s great is that Gordon says something to him about not expecting Foley to walk down main street in full deputy commissioner uniform, but that they must do something—and yet, when the big showdown happens, that’s exactly what we see—Foley leading the cops and wearing his full uniform complete with honors, etc. We see him get shot by one of the tumblers later, and Foley ends up giving his life for Gotham in the end.

A redemption of the police force as the beginning of hope for Gotham was about all that the Nolan brothers and Goyer could artistically and philosophically muster, perhaps. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, Nolan has a pretty dark vision going through most of his movies, and they don’t end as positively as TDKR did. In the end of TDKR, we get Wayne surviving, finally moving on with his life with Selina Kyle (who apparently has also turned toward the light), and it’s all set to the vision that Alfred beautifully described he wanted for Bruce. All the clues that are left point in favor toward this being a real event, and not just something Alfred imagined. IMO, this kind of ending is a major step forward for Nolan within the context of his earlier work. To compare it to INCEPTION, for instance, there’s no real room for thinking that the happy ending might just be a dream.

So we get the redemption of the police, Batman, and Selina Kyle. I liked all of that, and Batman’s revelation of his identity to Gordon was beautiful, too. Nonetheless, the whole thing could have been much more glorious. When Bane had Batman on the ropes, instead of Catwoman saving him, it would have been something if some of Gotham’s citizens had instead. They could have ripped his mask off, finishing him off. And in tending to a battered and bleeding Batman, they could have taken his mask off too—this would have worked as a great symbolic reversal, since the removal of Bane’s mask would have lead to Bane’s death, while the removal of Batman’s mask by the populace, in a way, would have led to the redemption of life for Bruce Wayne. In removing the mask from him, the citizens are showing that they no longer need the Batman.

And of course, after all that, a maskless batman would have hopped into the batwing for the ensuing chase after the bomb, taken it out to the ocean, faked his own death, etc. and we would’ve got generally the rest of the ending Nolan gave us (estate goes to Blake, funeral scene at wayne’s grave, bat signal restored, alfred seeing wayne and kyle at the cafe, etc.)

That would have been an ending more worthy of the series, imo—to use Steve’s words earlier, it would have rocked—HARD

Posted by Nick Milne on Sunday, Jul 22, 2012 5:19 AM (EDT):

@suzy:

A good Christian can call what is entertaining entertaining and what is edifying edifying. The things you describe can be edifying when presented in a narrative context. “Here is villainy,” they say; “behold it, and think.”

Besides, you’re being awfully selective. If this will have a significant influence on the imaginations of young viewers for generations… well, I’m delighted. The strong giving their all in defense of the week, villains confronted and defeated at every turn, the good refusing to knuckle under no matter how hard the going gets (as I saw in the films we’re discussing). See how different this becomes when we examine ideas rather than incidents? And these aren’t even the only ideas at work—some are more complex, some are less true. All of them are edifying.

Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy will have such an impact on younger viewers (or, at least I hope it will), but it’s not showing them anything they haven’t seen before in terms of the sort of things you denounce above. These can be found in plenty across great swaths of art, film and literature—in the Bible, for instance. They can also be found in real life, as Friday’s events so vividly demonstrate (along with hundreds—thousands—of other events, day in, day out, from the dawn of the race to the end of all things). Young people must know that they do not live in a bedtime story, but rather in a tragic epic.

The events you denounce were brutal and awful. But then, so was the man who perpetrated them, and that film’s whole point was that he was a monster who must be challenged and defeated. That his nihilism and cruelty and reckless unconcern were evil, and that evil must have its laughter choked to silence.

We do not hurt future generations by showing them what evil looks like; we hurt them by being so terrified that we refuse to show them evil at all.

Posted by Donald Neal on Sunday, Jul 22, 2012 4:58 AM (EDT):

At the end of The Dark Knight, Commissioner Gordon says publicly and privately different things about heroism and what the city needs. The thing he does not say is that The Batman is the hero Gotham needs, but does not deserve. I guess that to be Nolan’s meaning, though whether Gordon’s failure to say it is intentional on that film’s part I find hard to tell. Gordon is involved at that time in a flawed strategy, and the character may be meant to be seen in hindsight as wrong.

(In TDKR there’s a passing comment disclosing that a high-profile environmentalist has a private plane. At the time I thought that a mistake in the script. I now suspect it wasn’t.)

Given SDG’s review and preceding comments, I’d like to underline four scenes. In one, a hero returns from the dead, sporting in that scene a beard reminiscent of a certain type of iconography. In his next appearance, that hero offers a character “a clean slate, a new start”. Later he expresses trust that that character will do the right thing - “There’s more to you than that”. Now, it is a fact that that character is following a path familiar from film noir - the compromised character who does the right thing when the crunch comes - but the form those scenes take and the incentive offered the character are at a minimum extremely useful things to have out there in popular culture.

There is a clear thread of personal choice and turning around present in this film.

The fourth scene is more of a surprise. SDG wrote of it “Certainly when it finally comes down to two vast throngs of people surging at each other, and you’ve got all blue uniforms on one side and all street clothes on the other ...”. I think he should look at how the scene looks again, possibly twice. On one side are people in assorted clothing, yes, but with armoured vehicles mounting fair-sized guns. Those vehicles are there to ensure the scene doesn’t just look as he describes it.

Now, in a world not short of automatic weapons, that scene makes no sense at all as a depiction of urban combat. But think about what it does look like. Advancing towards the men in whatever clothing they brought along - and their artillery - is a formation in blue uniforms. One man at the front is wearing white gloves. Anyone reading this who hasn’t seen that before needs to go and watch “Glory” again NOW.

The army of Law/Order/Justice/Righteousness/God is not an image we use much. But I think that’s what’s being got at here, using imagery which would have meant exactly that to many of the Americans of a different time and place.

I don’t propose that TDKR is flawless, and having seen it only the once I don’t propose that I understand it in any complete sense. I’m not sure whether some of what I guess may be errors by the film are errors by characters. But what if whether Gotham as it is is worth saving is not a vital question for me? And what if we emphasised corporate rather than individual response to the Messiah?

What if I don’t see why the world as it is now is worth saving? (Commissioner Smiley, sorry Gordon, lives in a world of criminals and failed cops, and would be more than entitled to take that view.) But I owe my clean slate, my new start to a hero who I know loves the city, and his judgement is good enough for me. That hero’s war can be presented as a matter for individual decision, but it’s just as fair to say that there’s war on, and you are called to be part of one of the sides.

And that hero may not be what the world deserves, but he’s what the world needs.

I’m neither American nor Catholic. Am I really the only person here who sees it this way?

Thanks for the thoughtful comments, everyone. I’ll have more responses in the days to come, but for now, I wanted to note that amid the heartbreak of the Colorado shootings, ordinary civilians did exhibit true heroism in a moment of crisis. In fact, at least three of the 12 fatalities are reported to be men who died shielding their girlfriends from the bullets with their bodies. (One of the three was ex-military, but still a civilian at the time.)

Posted by suzy on Saturday, Jul 21, 2012 6:14 PM (EDT):

If, as Matt said, this will have a significant influence on imaginations of young viewers for generations… then I’m afraid. A bomb shoved in someone’s mouth, a man tied up and set on fire, man’s eye slammed into a pencil, man’s face filleted with a knife…. (as I read in UK Telegraph)I don’t understand how a good Christian calls this entertainment. How can we be surprised by mass killings?

Posted by Iohannes on Saturday, Jul 21, 2012 4:47 PM (EDT):

I’m always seeing anti-catholic sentiments in films. Maybe I’m just too sensitive to it. But I did see what appeared to be catholic images in the forms of statues (i.e. Mary). But these images were in the homes of the elite, who were sometimes corrupt but portrayed as being cause of the social wrongs in that city. Is there a message the director may have intended by relating catholicism (if the statues were of saints) to corruption or corrupt individuals?

Posted by Oy on Saturday, Jul 21, 2012 4:19 PM (EDT):

What do you make of Jeffrey Overstreet’s review? Disagree? Understand and degree to an extent? Also do you have any plans to write an in-depth article that touches on the trilogy as whole, its weaknesses, how it measures up as a 3-act story, how it may impact future films, superhero or not, ect.?

Posted by Elizabeth S on Saturday, Jul 21, 2012 3:31 PM (EDT):

I thought the question wasn’t so much is Gotham worth saving as does the League of Shadows have the right to be judge/jury/executioner of an entire city, killing even good righteous men like the members of the police force, Lucius Fox, the young boys in the orphanage, and the priest/minister? running the boy’s home. I agree Nolan could have been clearer. I assume part of it is that visually the field of cops in blue swarming against the street thugs in browns and grays looks better and is easier to see than an assortment of civilians being mixed in with the cops. Was it said explicitly that all the men helping Gordon track the trucks were police? I had assumed most of Bane’s crew was the escaped convicts, gang members that hadn’t been caught yet, and people like the dead man found in the sewer in the beginning, young men without much in the way of future prospects. Possibly also members of the occupy movement, as at a couple points when they were throwing down the rich people I expected someone to start yelling about the 99%. At the end I also felt the villain’s motives were less about genuinely believing in the need to destroy a corrupt Gotham and more about revenge and personal desire to finish what Ra’s al Ghul started.

There were a few glaring plot holes unlike anything in the first two films. The biggest one is the way the bomb is disposed of. You can’t protect a city from an atom bomb just by towing it a mile or so out into the harbor. What about radiation and stuff? (It would have been easier to overlook this if the priest hadn’t reminded Blake “This is an atom bomb!” only minutes before.) Another one: how did Bruce get home from India or wherever he was after getting out of that pit? That should have been a non-trivial problem, but unless I missed something, it wasn’t addressed at all.

There’s a little too much expository dialogue, a flaw the first two films didn’t have. However, that cast is able to sell it pretty well.

As in The Dark Knight, Cillian Murphy’s brief appearances provide a rare, very welcome touch of humor.

What was Lucius Fox doing there? I thought he quit at the end of The Dark Knight. If he didn’t, the image of him walking away from the cell-phone sonar machine as it shuts down loses its emotional power.

There should have been a few lines of dialogue devoted to the Joker. Did he die? Was he securely locked up in an asylum far away? We needed some sort of gesture at the closure The Dark Knight didn’t give him. After all, when Bane reveals the truth about Harvey Dent, he’s following the Joker’s agenda.

There was one point when the thought intruded that we’ve seen Liam Neeson doing this before - in The Phantom Menace. But I can’t remember what I was thinking of.

I probably agree with whoever said there were more interesting ways to resolve the plot than the ticking time bomb situation. However, Batman’s parting line to Gordon was genuinely moving. What a great scene.

Posted by QMS on Saturday, Jul 21, 2012 12:57 PM (EDT):

So the trilogy ultimately failed. That would be terrible. We desperately need another hero saga then, a flawless one. If “Rises” failed the trilogy failed. TDK can’t stand on its own, it’s too dark and anticlimactic. Back to the drawing board to define a hero

Finrodel: That is, again, a very interesting way that Nolan could have resolved the problem. But your admission that “We don’t really see the effect that this has on the city” is as much to say that the trilogy doesn’t really embrace this solution, either.

QMS: That’s one way that Nolan could have resolved the moral question running through the trilogy, but nothing in DKR actually affirms or suggests such an answer.

In this film Nolan doesn’t actually seem interested in the ordinary civilians of Gotham one way or the other. He doesn’t make it clear that civilians who are neither cops nor convicts join Bane, and he doesn’t make it clear that they don’t. The interpretation that presumes the least is that the bulk of the civilians simply sit on the sidelines and wait. But Nolan doesn’t show this either. It’s like he’s simply lost track of the question.

This frustrates me on three levels. Thematically, it leaves a major recurring motif in the series unresolved. Realistically, it’s just not plausible that Bane’s scheme could proceed for months without encountering any resistance of any kind, or that people wouldn’t organize means of assisting one another in a time of crisis. And morally, it’s a missed opportunity to offer an inspiring depiction of meaningful heroism from ordinary people, something in sadly short supply in Hollywood cinema.

Posted by Finrodel on Saturday, Jul 21, 2012 12:25 PM (EDT):

@ QMS: Very interesting. So Gotham doesn’t deserve to be saved, but Batman is there to defend it from an unjust end?

=+=+= SPOLIERS =+=+=
I had somewhat of a different take. While Batman tried to save Gotham several times, he couldn’t really save it until he gave his life. We don’t really see the effect that this has on the city, save the placing of a statue of Batman, but I would like to think that this final act of salvation “shocked” Gotham into rising above its past and no longer needing Batman to save it. Gotham may not have been worth saving before, but Batman may have made it worth saving now.

Posted by QMS on Saturday, Jul 21, 2012 11:26 AM (EDT):

Mr. Greydanus, While I agree that the examples of Gotham’s goodness, perhaps that isn’t the point. While the question is asked “is Gotham worth saving?” all through the trilogy, perhaps the answer is not that it is fundamentally good, but rather that answer that Tolkein gives us in FOTR concerning Gollum ” Some that live deserve death, yet many that die deserve life, can you give it to them?” perhaps Gotham deserves to die, yet the Batman feels it should not be destroyed just by someone who feels it must die, like Bane or Ra’s Al Ghul. Who are they to pass judgement and sentence? Gotham must ultimately receive its justice from a higher power. This is in keeping with Batman’s rules and sense of justice. Perhaps Joe Chill deserved to die, yet the first film emphasizes it would not be right for Bruce to take his life or for anyone else to do so. Perhaps that is the point, whether Gotham is good or not they must continue to have the chance to become so. Granted, it could be felt that Bruce failed in his quest if they do not get a little better, at least, but really that remains to be seen. Maybe he did succeed, after his “sacrifice”. If not, at least he bought Gotham another chance.

@pachyderminator: I’m seriously blushing here! But your own comments set the bar so high!

Posted by The Pachyderminator on Friday, Jul 20, 2012 5:49 PM (EDT):

Typical SDG combox (and I mean that in a good way):

1. SDG writes a very insightful review that brilliantly nails both the strengths and weaknesses of the film.

2. People respond with various thoughts and questions and interesting discussions ensue.

3. Victor chimes in with a comment so hilarious it makes (1) and (2) seem pointless.

Posted by Bibbit on Friday, Jul 20, 2012 3:50 PM (EDT):

I had two thoughts leaving the movie, well, three. First, I liked it, it was pretty fun stuff and deserves the B+ Decent Films gave it.

I also wondered about the French Revolution stuff with the trials and what the makers where trying to say. The movie seemed to say capitalists are bad. And it said anti-capitalists are bad! And I wondered why two characters in the film leave the US to live elsewhere. What’s wrong with the US?

Posted by Ben on Friday, Jul 20, 2012 3:37 PM (EDT):

All this is a shame.

I’ve always looked on Batman as an “everyman” hero. He’s rich, but he’s not superhuman. His money gives him some nice gadgets, sure, but the real victory is always dependent on his intellect and will. The Nolan films also give ordinary people *much* bigger roles than do most superhero flicks: the trio of Pennyworth, Gordon, and Fox make real contributions to Batman’s fight against crime and provide the moral center of the movies. Compared to the Avengers, where the police and military exist to provide a functionally useless backdrops to rampaging demigods, Nolan’s films seem positively democratic. I was feeling good about a superhero series, for once.

That said, I wasn’t aware of the comic book background. Now, reflecting on what could have been, I’m disappointed.

Evan: I agree with a friend of mine who argued that Nolan meant Blake to be an everyman figure who rises to heroism, but the fact that he’s a cop is a thematic problem. Here’s why:

Bane sidelined the entire police force before issuing his challenge / call to arms to the civilian populace of Gotham. Thus, how those people—the non-police—respond to Bane’s challenge / call is the essential dramatic question.

Bane takes for granted that the cops will be against him. He wants to work with the civilian population. And the movie shows us throngs of civilians apparently going along with Bane’s agenda—at the tribunal, for instance. It’s possible that they’re all Bane’s fanatical disciples and/or convicts liberated from prison, though the movie doesn’t make that clear, and I’m not sure how it could.

Certainly when it finally comes down to two vast throngs of people surging at each other, and you’ve got all blue uniforms on one side and all street clothes on the other, it’s hard to see the cops simply as representatives of the ordinary man in the street. Visually at least, the man in the street (whoever he is) is the problem, and the cops are the solution.

Posted by Evan on Friday, Jul 20, 2012 1:51 PM (EDT):

Unless you want to argue that John Blake was an ordinary citizen who stepped up and joined the police, you’re right: there really is no example of heroism from ordinary citizens. I would call Blake’s actions along with the actions of the hunted cops half “a United 93 moment,” but the film does want/need a complete one.
I do think Nolan has been constructing a critique of a morally relativistic, consequentialist society that views its own happiness as the greatest good. (established by the ferry scene and the press conference in The Dark Knight) And Batman argues that such a sinful society is still worth saving, but there should still have been some example of heroism from a citizen, even if that example were something simple along the lines of Batman’s final line: “A hero can be anyone, even a cop who wraps a young boy in a coat to let him know the world has not ended.”

Cristina: I’m glad you enjoyed the film. I did too, despite my serious reservations about its place in the trilogy as a whole.

Catwoman (if we want to call her that) is a civilian of sorts, but like Batman she’s an extraordinarily skilled loner in a mask and costume—and she joins Lucius Fox and Alfred in the circle of Batman’s personal influence, and acts in concert with him (and under the influence of her infatuation with him). Gotham may or may not be full of people ready to believe in good, but if so, Catwoman isn’t their representative.

Posted by Cristina on Friday, Jul 20, 2012 11:07 AM (EDT):

Last night when I saw The Dark Knight I was very pleased with the movie although I did feel something was lacking. I wasn’t sure what that was until I read this review. There was a removal of “the citizens of Gotham”. You mainly saw the people of Gotham being terrorized, and it was Batman vs. Bane (an awesome villain). “Cat Woman”, who was a civilian, did encapsulate what the city of Gotham needed to be, a person who had done wrong but wanted badly to start afresh and do right. She was wearing mask (like Batman) but she brought light to the film. That being said I really enjoyed the film and thought there was joy for Bruce Wayne in the end.

No worries, Matt. I know how something like this can rattle you. I remember how sick I was years ago with that DC sniper. It actually changed my life for the better, since I started praying the rosary daily the day they caught the guys. Thanks for the appreciation! Cheers.

Posted by Matt on Friday, Jul 20, 2012 8:47 AM (EDT):

SDG,

My apologies. You are correct. I got caught up in the insanity of it when I saw the news this morning. What I said had no place in this blog. You have created a place for more civil discussion.
Your friend, Matt

Matt: Why would it not be worth all this analysis? This will be one of the most popular film trilogies of all time. It will exert a significant influence on the imaginations of young viewers for generations to come. Doesn’t it matter whether our most popular stories acknowledge and celebrate the capacity of ordinary people for heroism or whether they tell us that people are lawless and bad and the world is so dangerous that we need a militarized police force to crush evil and keep the people in line?

The death toll in Colorado is currently at least 12. Tragically, massive cultural phenomena seem to draw unbalanced people into their gravitational orbit. I’m guessing that even in a world without Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, the killer still would not have been a well-balanced individual, and probably would have eventually become responsible for some other tragedy in some other context.

Posted by Matt on Friday, Jul 20, 2012 7:58 AM (EDT):

Is this whole thing worth all this analysis?

TEN PEOPLE DIED LAST NIGHT AT A SHOWING IN COLORADO.

Nothing to do with the film, I trust and pray.

Posted by Barrett on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 11:45 PM (EDT):

Rachel k, usually don’t comment on sites, but had to b/c my wife and I had a discussion about having to kill your food. Maybe it would change some picky people but I think most would be okay with it. In the end they are animals and I would like to see how many vegetarians if put on say a small deserted island with nothing but one small fresh water pond and chicken would do. Sure they might have “higher” morals for a while, but at the end of the day, or week, I bet they would all love some BBQ sauce and a beer to go with the chicken.

Rachel K: I appreciate all of your very legitimate points, and I’m definitely open to—indeed, I prefer— the more positive read on the ferry incident. I agree that it points to a level of conscience and aversion to evil that goes beyond the more consequentialist thinking that seems so natural today. I’m just saying that it isn’t definitive, and that “believing in good” is more than not being able to bring oneself to do bad—as salutary as that minimum virtue of omission might be. Believing in good means affirming it in principle, which isn’t happening when the majority of people vote to detonate. I’ll take it for what it is, but I think we needed more.

Posted by Rachel K on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 9:51 PM (EDT):

SDG: That’s a fair read on the civilian ferry. I’d always interpreted it as essentially positive: while many people might say “Group X deserves to die,” few people are actually hardhearted enough to pull the trigger, and if every choicer had to abort a baby himself, or every pro-death penalty person had to perform a lethal injection herself, or even if every non-vegetarian had to slaughter his own meals, we’d live in a very different world. Basically, I saw it as boiling down to the idea that people can talk a big game when it comes to evil acts, but few can actually bring themselves to perform them. But I can see how it could be interpreted in a much more ambiguous way.

Posted by Brian on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 9:36 PM (EDT):

I feared as much. The biggest clue for me came at the beginning of TDK, when Batman shows his disgust that there are ordinary citizens, armed with (gasp!) guns, going toe to toe with thugs. As if everyone has the luxury of devoting themselves 24/7 to becoming a martial arts master. You know, instead of raising their families and earning a living. Sure it is just one small scene, but it smacked heavily of the typical elitist Hollywood attitude. Ignorant hayseeds thinking we can do for ourselves, instead of waiting for our government sanctioned savior.

Maggie: If Nolan had shown us human-scaled heroism from civilians taking responsibility for each other and their city, doing the right thing in hard times, perhaps even joining the police at a key moment, you couldn’t stop me from raving about this film.

Chris Wong: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS is a much more complex and nuanced story than you remember. Every opinion has a counterpoint, every foible is contrasted with the opposing virtue and vice versa. There is selfishness and pettiness among the people of Gotham, but also decency and heroism.

It isn’t true that the people were heroic only under Batman’s leadership. If I recall correctly, it was Gordon, not Batman, who averted the initial panic after the plane crash—and when “the spirit” spread to the people they responded with a heroism that came from within. Those two nurses who “came out of nowhere,” that shopkeeper who dumped his paint to provide buckets to fight the fire, that teenager with the radio who saved the priest—they weren’t doing what Batman or Gordon told them to.

And then there are small instances of heroism, like an immigrant cafe owner who sees a woman being mugged and clocks the thug with a rolling pin, saving her. This was a guy who didn’t even approve of Batman, who was nowhere around.

Lots of good stuff. If you missed it, read it again. (FWIW, I was a cartooning student when it came out, and I didn’t just read it, I devoured it, studied it. (Everything above is from memory—I’m sitting in a train station typing on my iPhone.) It’s still a masterpiece, and so, so much better than the junk Miller has been doing for so many years now.)

Posted by Chris Wong on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 9:23 PM (EDT):

Steven: I read Miller’s Dark Knight too, years ago. But I remember a rather different story, seeing it as a celebration of the lone superhero. Batman suffered throughout the story from media talking heads complaining about his heroics. I remember a grumpy lady with a hot dog whining about why people are obsessed about him because “we matter too”. Superman spoke of the smallness of humanity, saying “we must not remind them that giants walk the earth”. Altogether it was a low, pessimistic view of the masses.

The comic had—in an unnerving coincidence—its own 9/11, with a jetliner crashing into a Gotham skyscraper. But its view of the people was pessimistic—the opposite of what we saw under 9/11—with selfish anarchy breaking out. What turned the situation around was one man—the guy in tights—who stopped a mob on the verge of violence and took command of the populace. It was only under his (sometimes rough) leadership that the acts of civilian heroics you described could take place. The police commissioner acknowledged his leadership, saying he was “too big” to arrest.

I reserve the right to eat crow and change my mind after watching the movie. But it still seems like this remains the genre of the outsized individual hero. Whether it is the Miller Dark Knight who took charge and saved a city, or Nolan’s Bane who would command an army to destroy it, it seems to be a celebration of the individual(s) around whom the world pivots. They may command others, but it is they who drive the fate of the world. In these stories, giants walk the earth.

Posted by maggie on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 8:53 PM (EDT):

A fascinating review. I’m glad to hear it was still pretty good, even though possessing a serious flaw. Were there any other big problems with the film, or was that the only one? In other words, would it have merited an A rating if it had portrayed the people of Gotham as, overall, being good? (Though I know that you don’t pay a whole lot of attention to ratings.)

I gather your main point was that the movie never really justifies the assertion made at the end of ‘The Dark Knight’, that Batman was the hero that Gotham deserved. Indeed, keeping in mind that I haven’t seen the film yet, and judging primarily from this review, it would seem that that assertion should be reversed, i. e. that Gotham needed, but didn’t deserve, Batman.

Posted by kevin on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 8:53 PM (EDT):

good point, chris—that’s true, the majority of the votes were for blowing up the other ship lol

Chris Wong: One of this movie’s direct influences is one of the most famous graphic novels ever made, Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Miller’s Batman also faces a city-wide apocalypse—and he pulls together an army made of thugs an ex-gang members. What’s more, Miller celebrates the heroism of ordinary citizens: nurses, a shopkeeper, nuns, even a punk with a loud radio who saves the life of a priest.

Nolan’s Batman also has allies. It’s just that they’re all cops—every one—and ordinary citizens aren’t given the chance for heroism. It’s not endemic in the genre. It wasn’t even absent in Nolan’s influences. It’s just something he didn’t bother with—after making a burning issue of it for three films running.

Posted by Chris Wong on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 7:48 PM (EDT):

The way I see it, this genre of superhero story is all about the individual, the hero. Batman was never about collective action. That is why the question of Gotham’s worthiness is not relevant: it’s about individual heroes doing heroic things. Even the last movie’s ferry scene seems to emphasize this: while one collective vote came to a selfish decision, the key individuals’ actions on each ship were decisive and worthy. When I see this movie, I will be rooting for the heroes. They might be in costume, in uniform or acting with specific responsibility, but they will be men and women making their own decisions against evil.

Posted by kevin on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 6:58 PM (EDT):

Steve, Rachel, etc.—you’re right, the boat scene was awesome. Like you say, the business man’s decision, while the right one, seemed like it wasn’t made so much out of principle as it was something else, perhaps. That’s why the convict was amazing—we all thought he was gonna detonate it when he said “I’ll do what you shoulda did ten minutes ago” and then threw it out the window without a second thought, and returned to his group and started praying (at least that’s how I interpreted it)—awesome stuff!

One thing I’m happy about is that it looks like the last half hour or so is finally going to have a series of action scenes that is either on par with or exceeds a major action scene in the middle. Both BB and TDK had their best action in the vehicle chases during the middle of the films, and I thought their final action scenes were inferior (especially in TDK)...not the case this time around with TDKR, from what I gather. Nolan has learned to correct that shortcoming…

Posted by kevin on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 6:48 PM (EDT):

If Nolan gives us a redemption of Bruce Wayne and not much of anything in regard to Gotham as a whole (they’re at least grateful in the end, I hope?? lol), I’ll still consider that a step forward, of sorts, for the philosophical vision of Christopher Nolan himself. His movies are dark, and the endings are often dark or morally ambiguous. Let’s finally get a character who definitively comes out of the brooding gloom and into the light—dead or alive at the end of the movie, that’s what I want for Bruce Wayne here. Maybe once Nolan ends with an overtly loving and positive ending on the individual level with the title character, he can start moving toward applying it to humanity in general : )

Posted by John M on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 6:24 PM (EDT):

I’m not going to read the other comments till I see the movie, but if I had written the third movie (and I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would write it), I would have titled it “The Rise of Gotham” or “Gotham Rises”—before they announced it as The Dark Knight Rises. The city as a whole needed a redemption arc after the first two movies. I guess all I’m going to see, though, is “John Blake Rises.” Oh well. I’m still expecting something worth my time and money.

Jim: Um, regarding what? I’m not sure how much less positive information I could have provided and still talked about the movie at all. And I was generally pretty vague as it is. I’m pretty sure you’ll find my review one of the least spoilerific ones out there.

Posted by Victor on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 5:21 PM (EDT):

I guess if he really wanted to show how good the people of Gotham could be in the face of adversity, Nolan could have had Batmite show up, spray the Statue of Liberty down with mood slime and had Batman pilot it into Bane’s army to the tune of “Your Love (Keeps on Lifting Me)”.

Posted by Jim on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 4:36 PM (EDT):

:mad: Hows about a spoiler warning!?

Posted by Sir Robert on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 3:12 PM (EDT):

It is how I feel about current politics and the climate surrounding this political year…and maybe this film (unintentionally) is describing this. It does not matter who leads our country in the end. If everyday citizens and men and women do not change their hearts and minds and priorities, nothing will change for long for the good. We have to cease looking for “uniformed heroes” to bail us out, and we need to take responsiblity for our own actions and seek atonement from God (the only savior) for our own sins. Having said all this, I really like the Nolan Batman series. Father Robert Barron has an amazing video commentary/review on the Dark Knight and why Batman fails in redemption and Christ succeeds. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Nz6y_nreU

Robb: Batman originally hoped to “inspire” the people of Gotham. That would have been within the competence of a secular messiah. It didn’t work.

Rachel K: Don’t forget, the majority of passengers on the law-abiding ferry voted to blow up the prisoner ship—and the man who finally volunteered to do it accused the others of “not wanting to get their hands dirty,” then couldn’t bring himself to do it either. You can say that was his residual decency, but it also looks like lack of nerve winning out over lack of conviction. I’ll still take it as a victory, but a provisional one at best, in no way definitive.

The social experiment in The Dark Knight Rises is much larger in scope and goes on for months. Without little if any sign of civilian heroism here, the failure of the ferry passengers to blow each other up looks more like a fluke than anything telling about the citizens of Gotham, alas.

A “secular messiah” _would_ have difficulty changing the hearts and minds of men. Human history demonstrates that.

It is the heart and mind of a particular character that the films explore.

I was not arguing that the films answer the questions posed, just that they beg their asking. As many of Nolan’s films do, Batman attempts to activate the cerebral matter so many of us have turned off.

Posted by kevin on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 1:37 PM (EDT):

This is a bit disappointing, if what you say is true about Gotham. I am most looking forward to some kind of redemption for Bruce Wayne, and judging from the reviews, I think it’s likely we’ll get that. However, one of the things I really liked about TDK was the decision among the two men at the end to not detonate the bombs on the ships. The way this decision was presented in the massive convict was especially moving. I was hoping that in this movie we’d get something similar in the end, but on a bigger scale and in such a way that Gotham as a whole shows that its internal compass has benefitted or been inspired by the Batman…

Robb: Actually, what Batman has been arguing is that the city is full of people ready to believe in good. If that’s true—and the Joker’s experiment offered some mixed support for Batman’s thesis without clearly affirming it—nothing in The Dark Knight Rises gives us any more reason to believe it.

Yes, there are Catholic answers to those questions. But salvation has to mean more than champions beating bad guys to the punch while the people themselves are unchanged. Meaningful salvation isn’t accomplished with bigger guns. If Batman is a secular messiah—and my friend Jeff Overstreet argues that that’s how the film present him—he only brings the sort of salvation that the Zealots were interested in.

Posted by Robb on Thursday, Jul 19, 2012 11:46 AM (EDT):

I have not the yet screened “The Dark Knight Rises” but have enjoyed the previous films.

You ask the question, “Is Gotham worth saving”. I think Nolan has answered that question by clearly labeling the populace as “sinners”. This would lead many to believe that Ra’s and The Joker were correct in their assertion that Gotham was irredeemable.

The point that Nolan has been making from the beginning is that Batman sees things differently and “saves” Gotham in the face of its sin.

The films beg us to consider the larger questions, “Is the world worth saving” and, “Are we capable of saving ourselves”. There are Catholic answers to those questions.

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